Grow Your Goals

Wow, I have been running nonstop! School is going great and I'm really enjoying teaching 5 sections of English, as well as help out with the English Club and Achievers' League. I was also asked to help out two students in a remedial program. We have a lot of fun a few days a week singing on the guitar, trying to untangle the crazy rules of the language (although it seems that there are more exceptions to the rules than there are rules), and have a good time. I also conducted one training on the Understanding By Design theory and, this past week, two fellow volunteers visited me at site and helped me conduct two trainings that I can knock off of my goals list. 


On Friday, we held an all-day training for our school's Supreme Student Government. It's almost the same as  Student Council would be back home. The students are elected by the student body and are expected to organize activities, school projects, and act as liaison between teachers and students. Our training introduced them to Robert's Rules and the basic elements of a parliamentary meeting. We also discussed the roles of officers and the expectations of the organization. The second half of the day was focused on project development, and we discussed creating some school unity through school spirit, and prioritizing a list of projects the SSG can begin to work on. The kids were great and I hope they'll be able to use some of our advice. The next goal (cross your fingers) is that our students can now go and lead the same training at the other schools in our district.

The next day, we conducted a Classroom Management training for the teachers at my school. We even had some guests come from another school. It was a day filled with learning about teen behavior, how to react to different situations, and make the classrooms better for everyone. We had the teachers do all kinds of insane activities that were very entertaining to watch. We even ended the day by teaching them the Electric Slide!

Both days were very successful, and I had a great time watching the teachers and students get excited about their future plans to make the school better. Hopefully I'll get to see some small changes take place before I leave. But already this year the teachers seem to be trying extra hard, and their effort is being rubbed off onto the students!